The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels
Books / Hardcover
Books › Fiction › Short Stories (single author)
ISBN: 0060530103 / Publisher: Harper, January 2004
Explores the complexities of the human condition in four short novels that include the title novella, "Victoria and the Staveneys," "The Reason for It," and "A Love Child," in which a soldier becomes convinced that a child resulted from his brief wartime love affair.
Read More
With the four short novels in this collection, Doris Lessing once again proves that she is unrivalled in her ability to capture the truth of the human condition.The GrandmothersTwo women, close friends, fall in love with each other's teenage sons, and these passions last for years, until the women end them, promising a respectable old age. Victoria and the StaveneysA poor black girl has a baby with the son of a liberal middle-class family and finds that her little girl is slowly being absorbed into the world of white privilege and becoming estranged from her. The Reason for It Certain to appeal to fans of Shikasta and Memoirs of a Survivor, it describes the birth, flourishing, and decline of a culture long, long ago, but with many modern echoes. A Love ChildA soldier in World War II, during the dangerous voyage to India around the Cape, falls in love on shore leave and remains convinced that a love child resulted from the wartime romance.
Read Less